Method of excavating



' A. L. CONNELLY METHOD OF EXCAVATING Filed Feb' 24 1921 ALBERT Itcommnmz,

Petented Jan. 13, 1925.

UNITED'STATES PATENT ors ca.

or erson, MICHIGAN. ASSIGNO'R or ems-near To Janus J. (XJNNELLY, ornsrnorr. MICHIGAN. I a

- mnon or Excava'rme.

Appllcltflin lleduiebruary 24,1921. SerialNo. 447,681.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that L-Ammn'r' L. Commen 1 a citizen of the United States ofAmerica,

residing at Detroit, in the county of Wayne and State of Michigan, haveinvented certain new and useful Improvements in Methods of Excavating,of which the following is a specification, reference being bad thereinto the accompanying drawings. For digging tunnels, sewers and similarekcava-tions large machines have beenemployed or hand spades or shovelsemployed. especially in a clay or loamy soil, devoid of large rocks;Infthe first instance considerable time and labor are required to place,adjust and operate the large excavating machines, and in thelatterinstance the work is laborious and slow. a

Forg gdigging ditches, drains and trenches,

varlouii kinds of ditch and trench machines lufvebeenemployed requiringcareful 0 ercavating machines familiaritywith the machines.

ation and more or less mechanical ski! or It is believed any tool thatmay beoperated by power and controlled to a certain "extent approval asa substitute for and the tires large ext back tiring pick] and. shovel.signed and it maybe advantageously used in e'xcavating small tunnels andsewers in softjbr, clay earth.

The tool permits of a tunnel being dug or minin operations carried on bya A new andfithe manner of using it will be herein aftidescribedand thenclaimed, and refer ence will now be had to the=drawing, wherein r v r rFigure 1 is a perspective view l of the earth paring orscooping device;

Fig. 2 is a longitudinal sectional view of.

the same; Fig. 3 is across sectional viewof the device;

Fig. 4 isa rspective view of a modified form of the evice; v I

Fig. 5 is ahorizontal'sectional view of the partially com leted tunnelor sewer illustrating my met 10d of excavating. and

Fig. 6 is a. cross sectional view of the same.

The present method of digging a tunnel or sewer in soft earth is toprovide the earth with a vertical opening or shaft 1 of desired 'mymethod of excavating, I provide an y unskilled labor will-meet with-Sucha" tool I have deand the construction of thef tooldepth and thenstarts. lateral cylindrical.

'bore 2 inthe directionthe tunnel is to take from the opening 1. Thebore 2 may be excavated by hand tools or large machines and as the workprogresses the bore is provided with a linln 3 to prevent cave-ms laidfor the movement of cars 6 employed for carrying the excavated earthfromthe diggings "to the opening 1 where the cars are elevated and the earthremoved therefrom.

To carry on operations in accordance with earth paring or scoopingdevice in the form of a ring like member 5 having an off-set orprojected wall portion 7 provided with a sharp edge 8.

Suitably connected to the ringjlike member 5, opposite the off-set wall7, is a drag bar 9 having its outer end provided witha clevis orcoupling 10. Cozfinected to the side walls'of the ring like 'member 5are braces ll'connected to the drag; bar 941djacent its outer end, saidbraces and drag bar co-operating in providing a tripod bail for themember 5.

The 'deviceis adapted to be moved along the unfinished wall of thetunnel to pare or scoop stri s of earth 12 therefrom and this is accompished by placing the sharp edge 8 of the device in engagement with theearthen wall and pulling on the device so that a layer or strip of earthwill be re moved. As the strip is pared from the earthen wallitmay bebroken into lumps of desired size and .cast into the car 6. For movingthe aring or scooping device, I 10- cute a wind ass or pulley device 13within the finished portion of the tunnel and this Windlass or pulleydevice may be somewhat in the form of a hoisting engine or power winchelectrically driven and suitably controlled by an operator at the winch.(The winch is suitably anchored and attachedthereto is a cable 14 whichextends to the unfinished end of the tunnel and is trained about apulley block 15 attached to the (-lcvis 10. said cable extending back tothe winch where it is attached to and wound on the drum of the winch, sothat when the winch is operated the paring device will be pulled towardsthe winch and may be guided by a laborer within the tunnel.

diameter and lengt After each pulling operation the laborer retracts theparing device vto obtain a fresh grip in the earth and these operationsare carried on until tfile tunnel is of desired In starting the tunnel,I prefer to dig the opening 1 and then start a room or hall 16 in alateral direction from the bottom of the opening 1. The paring device isthen used on both of the longitudinal walls of the hall 16 untila'semi-cylindrical or arched openill -17 is produced, representing theupper M i of the tunnel. Then, the bottom of the opening 17 may be scooed out to start the cylindrical bore 2, and t ereafter the paring grscooping device 'is used as shown in en a hard shale or indurate earthis encountered a paring or scooping device :20

may 'be'used, as shown in Fig. 4, this device being similar to thatshown in Fig. 1, with the exce tion that the wall 7 is provided with aplum ity-of tines 18 which will co-operate with thesharp edge8 inremoving quantities of earth from the side walls of an incompletetunnel.

While in the drawings there, are illus tratedthe preferred embodimentsof my invention, it is to' be understood "that the structural elementsare susceptible to; such changes as fall within the scope of theappended elaim. i

"What I claim is:-, i 1

A method of digging a cylindrical tunnel or similar subway, consistingof first digging a vertical hole in the ground to a desired depth;second, digging a narrow lateral passage way in the direction in whichthe tunnel is to extend with the height of the passage corresponding toa'radiuspf the tunnel when complete; third, removing strips of earthfrom the sidewalls of the passage way to form, an 'upper sen'li-ylin-'drical passage way, and fourth, removing strips of earth from the floorof the semi cylindrical passage way to conveitsaid passage way into acylindrical passageway.

In testimony whereof I aflix m sign'a ture in presence of two wit es I II v v. annairrly. CONNELIJYI; Vitnesses: ANNA M. Donn, KARL H. Burma i t

